Romance Junky

By Terri Lively

I am standing in a church basement in a circle of mismatched folding chairs. The large cistern of scalded coffee on the fold up table behind me burns my nostrils with its harsh, bitter vapor. I clear my throat to introduce myself, strangely nervous, even though I know I am among friends, or at least people who understand. I begin.

“Hello, my name is Terri. And I am a Romance Addict.”

“Hello, Terri!” the crowd echoes.

Okay, so I made that up, and I don’t go to meetings, but I probably should. I am a romance addict.

Romance Addiction is a chronic condition. Symptoms include a preference for fantasy over reality, rashes of unrealistic expectations and a fever for the dramatic. Personally, I blame Walt Disney Princess Movies. All that Wedding-As-Happy-Ending bunk pushed me over the edge.

My addiction started young revealing itself through my Barbie-play.  I constructed perilous situations for my “dream hair” Barbie that would rival the climactic scene from any 70s era Bond picture replete with cackling villains and pools of bubbling lava. Then Ken would swoop down and save the woman he loved. I remember teaching my girlfriends how to tip the dolls’ heads so when they kissed their faces fit together nicely instead of smashing their noses together. You see, Barbie and Ken’s love was hampered by their rigid plastic necks.

Later, I ditched Barbie, taking her place as heroine. I acted out elaborate one-woman stories which varied in details, but essentially created a perfect storm of circumstances so that the “hero” could rescue me.  After the elaborate and action-packed pantomime battles, I always imagined the perfect, starry-eyed imaginary kiss to conclude my epic adventures.

But imaginary heroes can only last so long. Soon, this romantic obsession crossed-over to the real world and I started to crave flesh and blood boyfriends that could live up to the fantasies I had created in my youth. My father never slept well again.

In junior high, I was sure that I would marry the first boy I’d kissed during a Journey song at the roller skating rink after a mock “argument” about the color of my eyes. I wore the big fluorescent shoe string he gave me that night like an engagement ring the rest of the weekend. I was in love. We even had our very own Air Supply Song, Two Less Lonely People in the World. We broke up weeks later. I cannot remember why…but I suspect that I dumped him in pursuit of a new boy.

Eventually, it was my turn to be dumped: A photographer and the first true love of my life. He spent a year trying to convince me to go out with him until finally I acquiesced. Our romance ended when he kissed his co-star for the fall play at the cast party my parents told me I was too young to attend. I was her understudy…I guess in more ways than one.

There were other boyfriends, lots of others (Sorry, Dad.), but never one that I actually loved.   Where was my hero that I had created for myself all those years ago in my backyard? I threw myself into the search, committing to his discovery. By 28, I thought he was late.

It turns out that he wasn’t late. I was…to my one and only blind date of my whole dating career.

I rounded the corner of the building running by the restaurant window 35 minutes after I said I would meet him. I had a sinking feeling as I realized that I probably wouldn’t have waited this long for him. Would he even be there? My steps quickened as I approached the revolving door. How would I know if he was still there?

I released the handle of the revolving door and stepped into the crowded, smoky bar. The restaurant was dark with high ceilings and large front windows. The noisy chatter of the Saturday night crowd flooded my ears as my eyes adjusted to the light inside. Never having met him but familiar with the potential pitfalls of blind dates, I scanned the bar quickly to look for single men with a humped back and wooden teeth.

I spotted him at the bar. He smiled at me confidently. No visible hump.  I smiled back, and we were married two years later. Very romantic, right? But once an addict always an addict. 

A wedding, ten years and three kids later, I fell in love…with a fictional character. A 100-year-old vampire in fact. I read a couple thousand pages of a teen-aged novel series, stopping hardly long enough to sleep or eat. When I closed the cover of the last glorious (and highly ridiculous) novel, I was devastated. Devastated because I would never have first love again. Devastated that all my choices had been made, and now I was living with them. Devastated that the vivacious young heroine of the fantastic stories played out in the grass of my parents’ backyard was now rather ordinary.

The logical part of me knew this was ludicrous. You don’t love fictional characters. The 8-year-old-girl in me knew it was not. And like a junky looking for a fix, I read them again.

Finally, knocking on the door of middle-age halfway through the series for the second time, I recognized my addiction. Clearly I was romance-starved. The reality of marriage and family and sacrifice had worn down the new and glorious love my husband, and I started in that smoky bar. Now instead of roses and weekends away, we had alone time on the couch for a few minutes before we fell asleep. Or we had squabbles over who was responsible for the mess in the garage and how to properly load the dinner dishes in the dishwasher.

My fantasies are very selfish. My needs are first and foremost, and practical matters don’t interfere. The Fantasy Hero is only there to serve me, save me and make me feel beautiful. The vampire is an excellent example. He “lived” for his love’s every need. The vampire didn’t have a job or faults, or terrible laundry etiquette. He didn’t even need to sleep.

Sadly, my husband could never measure up to my blood-sucking boyfriend. For one thing, he rarely can stay awake much past the kid’s bedtimes. He also does have terrible laundry etiquette. And finally, though he might argue with this point, he does not live to meet his love’s every need.

He does love me though and as an adult in a real marriage in the real world, there are practical matters to discuss with your lover. Conversations about how to load the dishwasher or where to store the Christmas lights rarely come up in the fantasy world. While these topics aren’t very romantic, such conversations are the foundation of real love. They are the loving negotiations we have daily to navigate the mundane obstacles we have to endure on this oft-romanticized notion of being on the road of life.

The difference between romance and love is simple. Romance gets you started. Love gets you through. If Romance is the quest, then Love is the navigation to get you there. Romance gives you a thrill while Love gives you a foundation. And loving someone in reality means acknowledging that romance is a state of mind, not a state of being.

So I love my husband and love my addiction. I feed my addiction with a steady stream of romantic movies and the occasional re-reading of a particular series of vampire books. But now when I read the books, I recognize that the beauty of them is that they are ridiculous. Besides, if I wanted reality, I’d buy non-fiction vampire books.

The other day I walked in on my daughter playing with her Barbies. They were getting married. As I saw her twist their faces on their rigid plastic necks, so they didn’t smash noses when they kissed, I sighed. Another Romance Junky is loose in the world. May she be romanced by her prince charming then love him for being real.